Deserving
by morphemes
Summary: (Modern AU) Nico di Angelo is far from the most popular kids in Half Bay High School and Percy Jackson is far from the emotionless new boy that allows himself to be bullied and humiliated in silence. When all you know is weakness and shame, can you open up to kindness? Can you allow yourself to deserve better?


My first percico fic wow hi guys big fandom I'm kinda nervous but yeah!  
PERCICO IS SUPER CUTE BUT SUPER SAD BUT great for high school au's. Everyone loves a good emo lead.  
This will be two or three parts because I'm too lazy to write extra long one shots and like splitting them up.  
THIS THING IS DEDICATED TO ALL THE PEOPLE WHO YELLED AT ME TO READ THE PJO BOOKS AND WATCHED ME LIVETWEET ME PAIN namely Deema, Volante, Arianna, Aysu, Jacob, Aysha and Sil (there's probably more but I suck and can't remember) YOU MEGA BABES. I love you guys! Thank you for ruining my life! I will read HoO soon!  
To everyone reading, I hope y'all enjoy it! Exclamation marks! Enthusiasm! Hell yeah!

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_High school will be fun_, they said. _Best time of your life_, they said.

_Fuck you_, I said.

Except I didn't say that. I didn't say anything. I just let myself be pushed into the lockers, my fists clenched, my jaw tight and my grip on my bag loose, with good reason; they tore it from me anyway.

Up until my transfer to Half Bay High School (a mouthful, I know), the only violence I knew was self-inflicted. My mom was gentle, too much sometimes, and I remember the way she had zipped up my coat and said, _it's going to be okay, Nico, sweetie. It's going to be good_.

To this day, I still didn't have the heart to tell her that things were anything but okay and good. She didn't notice the bruises up my arms and I didn't let her see my chest or my back. She said nothing about my ferocious appetite when I got home. Let her think I'm starving myself. Let her think I'm hurting myself.

Let her think that my only enemy was myself.

All I had learn at Half Bay High School was that bullies to steal your lunch money. And trip you up on your way to class. And tip out the contents of your bag into the hallway and leave you to clean it up, whilst chortling like they had invented the concept of gravity.

And that was only on the good days.

I thought today would be a good day. Many weren't a fan of Thursdays but it was the only day that my timetable was clear of any of the 'warriors,' as Clarisse and her crew called themselves. The route between my classes also meant that I could avoid the corridors they usually cornered me in. The only time they could really get me was first thing in the morning.

Which was, consequently, right now.

"Hey, di Angelo!" What was it with tough kids and surnames?

Then I remembered the other names they called me and respected my bloodline. Being called my actual name was the least of my worries, in comparison to other things.

Like the fact that Clarisse actually expected an answer when her cronies had my face pushed against some poor freshman's locker.

I didn't reply. I never did. Clarisse made a sound of frustration which could only be described as a growl. I expected her hand on the back of my shirt, pulling my head from the locker before slamming into it. It still hurt but I didn't make a sound.

She turned me around roughly and her face was all I could see, which wasn't a pretty sight, considering she was multiple feet of strong muscle, impending space usage and hair the colour of the fire she planned to destroy you with. She was spitting curses into my face as she told me to say something, anything, or she'd beat me until they'd have to take me out of here on a stretcher, take me away altogether. And I thought please, please do that, please be stupid enough to land yourself with 500 hours of community service but I said nothing. She screamed, frustrated at my impassiveness, and her breath smelt of garlic. It would have been hilarious (I mean, seriously? _Garlic?_ Did I have to change the comparison I made between her hair and fire need to be changed to her hair and the blood she drank) – if she hadn't chosen that moment to throw me across the hallway. I had a new metaphor for her hair.

_Oh, terrifying and bleak Clarisse / hair the colour of di Angelo's blood / why can't you let go off his hood?_

As I resisted the urge to rub my backside from the fall, I congratulated myself for my kinda haiku. Then I felt shadows on my face and I waited for the hitting to start because these warriors had no problem with kicking a man who was down, it seemed. Honour was dead.

I looked up to find Clarisse looking down at me, as if she almost felt sorry for me. But it wasn't sympathy. Clarisse looked at her victims like you'd look at a snail under your foot, like breaking its home was its own fault but man, it must suck to be you, little snail. Comparing myself to a snail when my face was far too close to the bottom of Clarisse's Docs was not the best of ideas but neither was this school.

I called it Half Blood High sometimes but I didn't have any friends so no one could appreciate my humour. Besides, the blood was mine and that wasn't a metaphor.

I tensed myself for the promised blow that would put me in hospital. Again, it didn't happen. Instead, Clarisse smirked and I knew this was going to be much, _much_ worse.

"Hey!" she called but it wasn't to me.

Everyone in the hallway stopped. Sometimes I forgot that she beat me up in the public eye, until I was sat in class and the chairs next to me were empty. Maybe it was the aura I had here, for half a year that gave the impression that I didn't want company (which was true enough) but I knew it had more to do with survival. No one wanted to be like me.

I could relate.

Clarisse smirked at the silence of the previously loud and bustling corridor, as if to say, _fuck you, di Angelo. I don't need your stupid reply. I've got the whole school treating me like a queen_.

She scanned the crowd leisurely, stepping over my fallen form too carefully for someone with the heart to be a cold blooded killer. I wanted to curl up, aware of too many sets of eyes on me. I wanted to run away but that meant facing dozens of gazes. I stayed where I was, in fear that the opposite was what Clarisse wanted. She wanted an audience as she broke me.

I was more scared for everyone to see that I already was.

She stopped in front of someone and I didn't raise my eyes. For the first time since she started beating me up, since the start of everything not good and not okay, I was scared.

_Not him. Not him. Not him._ "You!"

Percy Jackson jumped a little as she stomped herself to a stop in front of him. Her finger was pointed in his face and her eyes were gleeful, full of malice. I looked up to see his eyes flickering to me and forced my eyes to Clarisse's boots, ones that I wished were kicking me right now, repeatedly, terribly, anything but _this_.

"Clarisse," he said. Strong. His friends barely shrunk back. The difference between our strength was mine was of cowardice and theirs of heroes. I swallowed and listened, unable to bear the weight of watching.

"Jackson," she sneered. "I need some help. See, my friend Nico here is having some… _trouble_."

The silence was worthy of life changing speeches. Clarisse probably had no idea she was ruining mine.

I imagined Percy tilting his head in a motion that told her to continue. I wondered if he was really as indifferent to this whole thing as I pretended to be. I wondered if he was prepared to be on the floor next to me at any moment.

Clarisse sighed dramatically and began walking back to me, hand gestures exaggerated and swagger strong. _She's not a queen_, I corrected myself. _Not a queen but a goddess_.

"Nico's new around here, see" – she ruffled my hair, faking affection to a crowd that was already bought by fear – "and I had an idea."

I was called stupid a lot but I knew where this was going. Percy did too. Eyes trained on his black Converse, I saw his friends move back. His own stance simply strengthened.

"Percy Jackson," Clarisse said, loud and clear, "I want you to take Nico di Angelo on a date."

Everyone was looking at us, mostly Percy, awaiting his response, but Clarisse was looking at me. I lifted my chin and met her eyes steadily, as if her idea of a joke wasn't most costly than she could ever imagine.

That's all I had. My words were my own. I didn't have to explain myself to anyone.

Her spiteful smirk turned downwards, unimpressed by my constant silence. I could have smiled but then Percy spoke and the reality of what was happening sank down on me. It was a good thing I was already on the floor.

"Are you kidding, Clarisse?" he asked and I thought of the mostly concealed anger under his question and how many students in the corridor saw it, saw how Percy was disgusted at the idea of being around me.

"I _never_ kid, Jackson. Take him out," She placed her hands on her hips triumphantly, grinning wolfishly back at me. "Tonight."

I stared down at my hands, balled into fists, waiting.

Percy sighed, quietly but not quiet enough. That was his defeat. Clarisse and her friends cheered obnoxiously and Clarisse even smacked Percy on his back in what was her definition of friendly. Anyone who was against me was not against the warriors and everyone wanted to save themselves.

I felt sick, sicker than I had when I first set eyes on Clarisse, sicker than my first day here. Sicker, even, than when Percy Jackson first spoke to me.

"Good on you, Jackson!" she chortled. "Maybe you'll show this loser how to be _normal_."

There it was that, that word, like beating someone to the point of humiliation was normal. But normal wasn't always right.

I was already beaten but I looked at Clarisse, ignoring Percy as he was ignoring me, and glared with all the hatred I had burning inside of me (which was a lot.) Her eyes flickered with surprise but any reaction from me was a good one.

Of all people she could have picked, she chose someone that would actually hurt, unintentionally but that didn't matter. Percy being Clarisse's hit man already hurt.

"Sherman!" she barked and he, unceremoniously, tipped the contents of my bag at my feet.

As the Half Blood High warriors walked away, hollering at each other to show their power, the crowds dispersed. I let them move around me, mumbling and muttering. It was worse when they acknowledged you but didn't help you. All I wanted was to disappear.

Swallowing hard, I got to my knees unsteadily and began gathering my things.

My mind was too preoccupied with Percy Jackson to actually notice Percy Jackson crouching beside me. My hands stilled as his began slotting papers back into files. I was too scared to tell him that he was putting my notes on Greek mythology into my biology folder.

It was a brave thing of him to do, to help me like that. But then I realised that he had waited until we were alone and it wasn't so brave. Still, I couldn't blame him for being ashamed of being associated with me. I let bullies beat me for fun.

He held some textbooks in hands and I reached out for them, careful not to let our hands touch. But he held on.

"Nico?" His voice was low and kind.

I didn't look at him but I spoke because I had to, because him being nice and me saying nothing made me feel even more horrible than I already did. I said, "Thank you."

He let go off my books and I put them in my backpack. Neither of us spoke but when I jumped to my feet, he followed and hurriedly blurted out, "You've already said that before."

One of the weirdest things about your association with other people was, for me, how memories could mean everything to you and nothing to them, despite being shared. Another weird thing was how you could think the memory meant nothing to them when it meant something after all.

"What?" was my intelligent response. I was so surprised I made eye contact.

Percy Jackson was your average attractive guy: dark hair, blue eyes, cheekbones that could cut something. The worst thing about pretty boys that you hadn't known all your life was that you hadn't known them all your life. I hadn't seen Percy when he was fourteen, pimply and his voice could give metal forks on china plates a run for their money. Beautiful boys were illusions and one of them was smiling at me with too much kindness to be directed at the high school punch-bag.

He had a lovely smile, the kind that was made for photos and made little wrinkles around his eyes. His smile had the potential to be falsely charismatic and a part of me was proud of it – of _him_ – for being genuine but mostly I just felt sad that as real as his smile was, his intentions behind standing beside me were illusions.

"Maybe you don't remember but when I gave you the directors to the main office." Percy chuckled softly, with maybe a tinge of embarrassment. Those impressive cheekbones of his were storing blood in a way too delicate for practically a _man_. "Those were your first and only words to me. I figure I deserve a few more right now."

That made me angry – angrier, in fact, than I had been when Clarisse had shoved me into a locker.

"Yeah," I spat, "and I deserve not to be thrown around like a ragdoll. Deserving is _nothing_."

If Percy was surprised, he didn't show it. "Maybe. But maybe it's about knowing you're worth more than being thrown around like a ragdoll."

He was backing away from me now, his kindness gone cold. The bell had long gone and he'd stayed back to help me pick up my things. _And I repay him by blaming him for my weakness_.

"I'll meet you outside your locker after school," he said then turned and walked away.

It didn't occur to me until much later that Percy Jackson knew where my locker was.


End file.
